Jim Ward, who left the CEO job at video game publisher LucasArts in early 2008, is now hoping to win a seat in Congress.

Ward, a Republican who currently works as a venture capitalist, is running to represent Arizona's 5th Congressional District. That seat is currently held by two-term Democrat Harry Mitchell. The district includes Scottsdale, Tempe and parts of Phoenix.

I’m not a professional politician. I’m a businessman. And I don’t disagree that this country needs change. But, in my experience, there’s the right kind of change and the wrong kind of change. I believe what’s happening to this country represents the wrong kind of change...

Ward lists his political philosophy as conservative on Facebook. He has protested (see pic at left) against President Obama's healthcare plan.

Comments

If universal health care is so great, how come nobody in the federal government has come forward saying that the people in the government will be on the same plan? I mean, they have their own health care plan (and it's awesome, by the way) but from what I've read of the bills, theirs is nothing like what is being proposed for the rest of us. Any of you supporters of social health care got a logical answer to that one?

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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.

I'm going to deviate from the health care debate and say that Jim Ward destroyed Lucasarts, he's the person responsible for the horrible milking of the Star Wars brand and churning out derivative games over and over. Check out the end of this video when he comes across as completely clueless http://g4tv.com/videos/11326/LucasArts-at-E3/

Now that he's gone, Lucasarts is making a comeback and reviving a bunch of their old titles (and doing amazing sales too!) - which is exactly what he was resisting in that video.

It's confusing to you because these people are either lying, or just plain stupid.

In Canada, for example, you can choose any doctor you want. Period.

It's not about the government 'telling people' what to do. It's about the government providing a service to its people.

Obviously, it's not 'free' in the sense that we pay taxes for it. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to many other things that keep society running, and it's a price I'm willing to pay for a country worth living in.

I don't understand many of the criticisms of the system because it's ALREADY LIKE THAT. There are already death panels, doctors who are paid off to disapprove operations, and tons of exceptions made for "risky/experimental" treatments which are not covered, even if there is still a good chance.

Basically, the American system places a value on you. You are worth so much money, and after that you're on your own. In civilized nations, we don't put a price on people. People are the greatest resource a country can have.

To all the people here repeating solely what talking heads have to say: Read the bill. Even a democrat should be able to find things reprehensible in it by page 300. If not, you might as well call yourself a socialist.

Also, the word 'socialism' has rather different connotations in America than the rest of the world, in part because of the Cold War.

Do you consider the police and fire departments to be socialist organizations? What about your precious military? Aren't they, by your own definition, 'socialist'? What about child labour laws? Or minimum wage? After all, we can't have the government getting in the way of business, right?

You haven't read the bill though, and it would help if you actually read it, or rather the dozens of pages that address the bloody 300th page, instead of listening to Chuck Norris and some div who claims to be an expert despite being in a completely different field.

Wrong. The Mayo Clinic, arguably the best hospital in America, has been vehemently against Obamacare from day one. That's why, when the President cited the Mayo Clinic as a model for his health care plan, they said they didn't want to be associated with it.

You've been trying to defend a poor bill so much that you just assume that anyone not wanting to be on board is racist.

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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.

i don't see racist occuring in any of the above coments, he simply assumed the professor said he was an expert, i stated otherwise, and he accepted that fact as true in a civil manner, much better of a discussion then i've seen from others.

I did a "ctrl+f" to find if anyone accused anyone else of racism or bigotry, and all I got was me stating a bill in the 1980's was anti-racial discrimination, and findings of the word "racist" were only fron Baruch and Jed(whatever the rest of the name).

Like everything else poster said above, it is a false statement and I give him the "pants on fire" rating.

I can see how it's been easy. personally i've never really taken a position, my whole goal of discussion on this site has simply been keeping it all based in fact and make sure each side provides proper proof to their claims.

I've never made a claim, as far as i can tell, without citing proper sources, and i just want everyone to approach this with the same amount of proper research to weed out bias.

all doctors i've seen on CNN seem to be in favor of reform, just maybe not exactly what's on the bill right now, which is fine the whole point of the democratic process is to find a compramise of ideas. yet some people just resort to bashing it without offering constructive ideas.

If you had the ability to digest any of my words you'd understand with complete certainty that I want less taxes. Meaning the government takes less of your money. Meaning less taxes. Meaning when you get paid you get more money. Meaning you keep more of what you earn. Meaning you don't get taxed for simply living and having a job. Do I need to continue? Reallly? Are you serious? Meaning the government doesn't have their hands in your pocket. Meaning the government has less money to waste on illegal wars and unconstitutional programs. Meaning congress has no power to use authorities not granted in article 1 section 8 of the constitution of the United States of America.

Ir order to become a CEO of a large compnay, one has to be a political business person. Which means, right from the begining he is trying to fool people in to believing one thing, when the opposite is true. Such a tactic will work, since 97% of republicans seem to fall for the tactic so often, its beyond simple amusement. All he has to do, is play the 'fear' card, and all those little republicans will come running to him.

But then again, he just have to have people in that state believe illegal aliens are taking over, mexicans are storming across the border, and that democrats of the state will take their guns away. On top of that, try to tell them their health care will be like (insert european country republicans hate at the time). Its the same old crap, and those people in that state eat it up, as if the dish has never been served.

Yeah, number one being being how it is much cheaper and number two how it is more reliable than private insurance. I bet you can't name one thing of the "thousands of ways to FORCE someone to use the 'option'".

1. Any change in policy coverage and the individual who owns the policy is switched to goverment 'option'.

2. Any change in COST and the individual is switched to government 'option'.

3. All businesses that don't use goverment 'option' and don't meet the government 'standard' (which its likely the government won't even meet) are either forced to switch to government 'option' or to pay an 8% payroll tax, which makes it even harder for a company to be competitive. In other words, they have to switch to the government option if the government says their insurance isn't what the government thinks it should be.

It's optional to take, not optional to pay for it. Whether I take it or not, I have to pay for it. Explain how it would be fair for me to go to the gym, take care of my body, get checkups every year (with my own insurance), but have to pay for all of the medical care for some lazy fatass with no job? I do the work to take care of my self, so why should I have to pay for someone else unwilling to do the work to take care of themselves?

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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.

Actually, I do have goverment run health care in my state. And I'm in the USA. Its run pretty well, because a group of people got together and put together healthcare with the patient in mind, not the insurance company or hospital in mind. Yes, it is not fool proof. Nor is it perfect system. But it does cover all 98% of residents (the remaining 2% just pay the $2300 fine to avoid it). It is set up to be preventive medicine (i.e. help pays for gym membership), not just reactive medicine (i.e. showing up at the ER for medical treatment).

In addition, this healthcare cover, that covers 98% of the state's residents, costs only $88 million a year. That's pocket change when you realize, it is only 3/10ths of 1% of the state's budget. If you could make sure every member of your family was covered by medical insurance. And your relatives, along with all your friends. And it costed you, only 3/10ths of 1% of your annual salary.....would you do it? Of course you would!

And that folks, is why the Commonwealth of Massachusetts's health care model is of interest. I havent had a problem with it. When I have questions, I contact the group, and wait about 15-20 minutes (patience is a virtue lost on 100% of conservatives....). The person on the other side has been helpful, kind, patient, and knowledgable. This is purely an American healthcare model.

So, what I hear from conservatives and Republicans, is the fear. That is all it is, for them. Its the same for any topic on our nation's list of troubles. They seem perfectly content to allow 40-50 million of our fellow Americans to suffer due to no health coverage.

Really? Because everytime I hear from people from Boston, I hear how terrible the health care is, how mediocre the services, and, especially from people in the government, how it drains money from the city.

"Really? Because everytime I hear from people from Boston, wait... I don't actually I don't know anybody from Boston and the people who I claim to be from Boston aren't from Boston at all but rather claim they are just so they can be on my side of the fence when it comes to arguing about it."

Actually, I go to Boston quite often. I love the bars, and I love the Sam Adams brew you can only get there. I also enjoy seeing Sox games. And I can tell you, there's not a lot of love for the health care in Boston to be found in Nuf Ced, the Bull and Finch, or the Cheers bar (not the bull and finch, the replica one).

Actually, when it comes to taking the word of someone who is directly correlated with it and someone who has no correlation with it in the first place, I'll take the one that directly implies causation. Like any intelligent person would do.

Accept you have no proof going one way or another about someone elses experiences, so you claiming it just didn't happen, for no other reason than it goes against what you think, makes you a complete jackass.

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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.

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PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/why-a-tekken-7-character-is-being-called-a-phoney-1694724959 Why a Tekken 7 Character Is Being Called a Phoney03/31/2015 - 10:08am

Michael Chandra: Argh. Anyway, I'm glad that move was made. Wonder if it counts, can he just declare it like that? 03/31/2015 - 9:27am